So in 1784, Patrick Henry tries this general assessment. Again it's going to ultimately go down to defeat, but Patrick Henry is elected governor again for the fourth time. Some people say that in fact he decided to become governor to get out of the legislature because he knew that the religious freedom proposal was going to fail, and he didn't want to be there to see it crash and burn. I think that's probably a little bit melodramatic. Other people point out he also had two daughters who happened to be marriageable age at this point of time. They were living in rural Henry County, and there weren't a lot of eligible bachelors there. So bringing them to Richmond for a few years, when he was governor, was a good way to increase their prospects. And it turns out that both of them are married by the time he's done serving his two terms as governor. But, for whatever reason, Henry's back as governor of Virginia. He does run the state fairly efficiently. They're still grappling with the remnants of the American Revolution. He's thought of as a good governor. He tries, once again, to do several things that he's unsuccessful with, but again I think they speak well of Henry. One of them is he tries again to block surveying in the Indian territory, in the Indian territory north of the Ohio River, what we know of as Ohio and Indiana, because he understands that it's not right that these settlers are simply moving into Indian territory. And there are going to be Indian wars throughout the 1790s as a result. The second thing he tries to do as governor, and again he fails, but it's very interesting, he wants to reform criminal law. At the time in the 18th century, and by the way, this is also an issue that was close to Thomas Jefferson's heart. They recognized that the criminal law was simply overly zealous, that for so many crimes the penalty was hanging. You could be executed for stealing, for attacks on people. And so Henry used his authority to grant clemency, to grant pardons as a way to reduce these penalties. But he didn't want to let people off. Often times they were legitimately convicted, for example, of thievery. So he would give them a conditional pardon and say that you can be pardoned if, you will basically serve your time for a certain period of years. Now this was ultimately found to be unconstitutional in Virginia because the constitution said the governor can pardon; it didn't say he could give a conditional pardon, but Henry was really leading the way to what's going to become criminal reform in the early 19th century. And he's not the only one, as I said, many thinkers realized that something had to be done with criminal law at this point in time, but, Henry is certainly part of that effort. Then, let me mention one other issue with Patrick Henry as governor. And it's one that's very interesting, and it keeps coming up in our discussions. Henry's governor in 1785, he's elected in 1784. He's elected for a second term in 1785. As part of his official duties, he is corresponding with Thomas Jefferson who is in Paris as the US ambassador. And at this time, the relationship between the states and the national government is somewhat fluid. So it's not uncommon for the governor of a state, especially Virginia being the largest state both in terms of geography as well as population and economic activity, it's not uncommon that the governor of Virginia is going to be in communication with the US ambassador in Paris. And Henry exchanges various formal letters with Jefferson. One thing they were trying to do, for example, was they were going to buy a bust of Washington for the new Virginia State Capitol, and they were exchanging letters about that. Well, in the midst of this correspondence, Henry encloses a personal letter to Jefferson. There's a letter that's the official letter, at the same time he sends a personal letter to Jefferson. And he says in that letter that there's a lot of things going on here in Virginia and Paris. There's political developments, education, we're building the new Virginia Capitol, which Jefferson had designed, and I can tell you about those things. And he goes on to say, "if you will be so good as [to] drop me in some leisure Hour the news with You it will be highly acceptable to Dear Sir Your affectionate and humble servant." Well, Henry's trying to bury the axe, so to speak. He understands that he and Jefferson had had a falling out at the end of the American Revolution, and he's trying to get them back into correspondence in a friendly manner. He mentions agriculture; they both love being farmers. He says, we can talk about what's going on in the farms. Now Henry's timing is a bit off. It's 1785, it's actually right in the middle of that battle over religious freedom with Madison and Jefferson and the evangelicals on one side, and Henry and other people on the other. But he's trying to do the right thing. Jefferson never responds to Henry's letter; he just ignores it. In fact, Jefferson is absolutely at the height of his high dudgeon with Patrick Henry. In 1781, we talked about that in the second lecture, a lot of the problems begin. But he is now exchanging letters with James Madison saying that I think what we need to do is "devoutly pray for his [Henry's] death." So it's very, Jefferson has taken this very seriously, that he will not make amends with Patrick Henry. Well, Henry serves for a number of years in the legislature, and as I said, does a number of interesting things. He serves for two years as governor. Well in 1786, the legislature wants to elect him a third time to governor and Patrick Henry says no. I'm done; I need to retire; I need to take care of my own finances; I have a large family, -- his family is continuing to grow -- and I need to go back into law practice. And so he insists that he will not accept a third governorship. And Patrick Henry enters the first of what will be several retirements.